If no date is specified, the template emits the current date.For example, {{date}} produces 27 පෙබරවාරි 2019.

If a date is provided, but is not recognized as one, the text is just returned as is. Most dates will however be recognized as such, including all the formats typically used on Wikipedia. Numerous variations thereof are also supported, including abbreviated or lower case month names; genitive 'st', 'nd', 'rd', 'th'; extraneous white space; missing comma etc.

Notes:

Some dates are converted even if they are not real dates, and some dates are not converted even though they are real dates. See known issues below.

Only dates within the range 1 ජනවාරි 1000 and 31 දෙසැම්බර් 9999 are supported. Dates with two digit dates will have unexpected results. Other dates outside the range 1000–9999 will be treated as if the second parameter were "none".

<date formatting style> controls the date format in which the result is to be emitted.

If no style is specified, the template emits a date in 'd month yyyy' format, as it appears (for example) on discussion pages.

Although these are the four formats supported by MediaWiki's date autoformatting mechanism, only dmy/ldmy and mdy/lmdy are in accordance with the English language Wikipedia's Manual of Style. The use of iso/liso (ISO 8601) format within article prose is expressly discouraged by the Manual of Style; this format should only be used in tables or lists.

In each case, the result is exactly the same as what would be emitted by MediaWiki's date autoformatting mechanism.

However, dates are not manipulated by MediaWiki's date autoformatting mechanism even when linked. This permits dates to have a consistent appearance regardless of whether they are linked or not.

The PHP library that this template ultimately depends on converts out-of-range values to the next-best in-range values. As a result, some date-like values that are not actually valid dates get converted anyway. These include...

all dates with zero day-of-the-month. Such a "zero-th" day of a month gets converted into the last day of the previous month.

For example, {{date|June 0, 2006}} results in 31 මැයි 2006.

Similarly, {{date|0 January 2006}} becomes 31 දෙසැම්බර් 2005.

all dates with day-number values that exceed the number of days in the specified month cause the date to be incremented into the next month.

For example, {{date|31 November 2008}} results in 1 දෙසැම්බර් 2008, since November has only 30 days.

Similarly, {{date|February 29, 2007}} results in 1 මාර්තු 2007, since 2007 was not a leap year.

Note: Due to a parser peculiarity in the PHP library, 'December 32' and '32 December' are treated differently, and the latter results in an error (which causes this template to emit it unchanged), and only the former "overflows" into the next month.

Non-Gregorian dates are treated as Gregorian

The PHP library that this template ultimately depends on assumes that all dates, irrespective of context, are Gregorian calendar dates. Consequently,...

some dates that would be valid in a non-Gregorian context are treated as out-of-range dates and converted to the next-best in-range values. For example, {{date|30 February 1712}} results in 1 මාර්තු 1712 because – even though 30 February 1712 is a valid date in the Swedish calendar – February 1712 had only 29 days in the Gregorian calendar.

ten dates are not reformatted. These are 29 February & 1 March of the years 1000, 1100, 1300, 1400, 1500. The cause of this is the same as that of the Swedish 30 February 1712.

some dates that would not be valid in some contexts are converted normally. For example, 29 February 1912 or 1 February 1918 are not valid in a Russian context, but perfectly valid in the Gregorian one.

ISO 8601 format not suitable for years before 1583

The ISO 8601 standard requires mutual agreement between those using the format to use years earlier than 1583. Since no agreement has been obtained from our readers, that format should not be used for such years, nor for any date not in the Gregorian calendar.

Not suitable for use in Microformats

hCalendar and hCardmicroformats have various date properties, which are not emitted by this template. Until that is resolved, use {{Start date}}, {{End date}}, {{Birth date}} or one of their variants, as necessary, in infoboxes which require microformat-compatible date templates.